My experience is hopping makes a difference but only in highly rubbered slow corners when the kart bogs and it’s just to maintain position coming out of a turn. We are talking maybe a 1/4 to 1/2 kart length at 30 MPH, so it won’t show on the clock but it might on in the data. I don’t like hopping because it takes so much energy and I barely have enough to finish on days when the track is rubbered up.
Where would one hop and why? Right when you big down in the turn, or when you accelerate out of it?
I can’t think of any way it would benefit
You see this in rentals a lot. Basically you hop in the seat as you are trying to get the push out of the corner. Take OVRP and it’s super tiny cutback. There’s no way a rental kart can have a gear that is happy for that turn as wel as the longer course. So, you are so slow at the peak of the turn you are way down on revs.
So, as you mash the accel to the floor on the way out, you nervously hop up and down somehow hoping that you can make the kart briefly lighter so the engine spools up a bit quicker. It does something, actually. And it feels good, too. It’s a bit like saying “Cmon Maggie, Go!”.
You’re trying to bounce in the seat so the rear wheels get light and accelerate a little more easily.
I’m not sure how beneficial it actually is. It could be worth something if you do it right with the proper timing. But remember that the weight that goes up has to come back down. For example, if you hop at 7000 RPM (2-stroke), you lighten the rear and reduce rolling resistance for a split second that may help you get up to 8000 RPM quicker, and then when your butt lands back in the seat, the kart is in a higher rev range and more in the powerband and is able to cope with your extra butt weight a bit better and accelerate better.
I give a good hop/thrust forward sometimes off a really slow corner but I’m not sure the time gain is measureable.
In order to go up you have to push down, and than when you land you also push down again. So net effect is you actually create more downward force.
Don’t forget you have to push down In order to pop up
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The thrust component of this is what’s critical IMO. If done properly it MIGHT yield some sort of forward boost. Doing it this way really only allows you to do it a couple of times off of a slow corner, as it’s a larger movement than the standard low HP “bouncy” move.
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Hopefully I’m not being mean by saying this, but I’ve (personally) only seen hopping in two situations:
1.) During a Leman’s Style Start
2.) Overweight drivers out of low speed turns
Does it help? I have no idea. . .
Wasn’t there a video floating around of an entire train of 20 or so rotax juniors or minis hopping down a straight?
Mini/Micro Max used to do this to try and engage “turbo mode”. I don’t remember the cause. Something about bouncing in the seat to overcome the restrictor and then the engine would get a burst of power. I can’t remember but it looked silly.
If I remember correctly, the timing changed once the engine passed and RPM threshold, and suddenly made a ton more power. Hopping in the seat to get the RPM to jump past that range gave a significant power bump versus not hopping.
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Thats really cool. Wonder if everyone knew what they were doing or if they were just copying the fast kids
Only on exit of slow rubbered turns. The difference on the clock is not practically measurable but a 1/4 of a kart length could make the difference between losing or gaining a position. The steering wheel has to be straight. Maybe it’s done to recover because IR set down too early due driving error.